Local director Zelda Dean is getting ready to launch her new play, The Year My Mother Came Back; the play and the Alice Eve Cohen novel it’s based on is strongly inspired by Cohen’s turmoil-filled relationship with her mother.
“I just love this play, I think I related to it. It’s just such a brave and unflinchingly honest play,” says Dean. “[Cohen’s relationship with her mother] wasn’t good during Alice’s formative years because her mother was ill… she [had] breast cancer. And Alice has breast cancer at the same age as her mother had it. Her mother survived; she lived for 20 more years. But she then died of another cause. And 30 years after her death in the play is when the protagonist, also named Alice, was diagnosed with breast cancer… But the play is not about breast cancer… This story is about the relationship between the daughter and the mother and it reaches back through the generations.”
The Year My Mother Came Back explores motherhood, reconciliation, loss, and love.
“The theme of it is it’s entirely possible for the people that we have lost to come back to us when we need them the most,” says Dean. “The general theme of the play is about love and reconciliation.”
After focusing her career on directing and founding theatre companies, Dean is excited by the charity work her current theatre company is doing.
“This is actually my 163rd play that I’ve directed; I’ve been around for a long time in both Alberta and in BC. I founded many theatre companies,” she says. “The one that’s doing this is Bema Productions out of the Congregation Emanu-El Synagogue, which I started in 2014. I’m really proud of it because our mandate at Bema is that we raise money for charities that are needy. So the synagogue allows us use of the one common area and we take it over three times a year. So far, we’ve donated to charities close to $70,000.”
Dean says that some aspects of the play are left up to audience interpretation.
“We haven’t decided whether [the mother’s] a ghost or whether she’s a manifestation in Alice’s mind,” says Dean. “During her formative years, when her mother was ill, their relationship fell apart. And during this period they’re able to reconnect on an amazingly deep level even though her mother is no longer alive.”
Dean enjoys working with actors that are new to the medium as well as working with professionals who share her love for storytelling.
“I got such joy out of helping actors and people that wanted to act who didn’t have necessarily the training or the skills. I was able to help them look pretty darn professional on stage,” she says. “Bema Productions, for the most part, are skilled community players with experience, with training, and with the joy of telling a story from the stage… I love to tell stories from the stage, and that’s what theatre is: it’s just telling a story.”
Dean also says that she loves the feeling of community that happens during the production of every play.
“I love the joy of forming relationship, a theatre family. Every time a play is produced it’s its own little family. You get very close because you’re working on trying to find the truth of what the playwright wanted,” she says. “You get very close to the people and then you move on to another play, and then another time you reconnect with these people and your family is still there. I love the joy of working with people as passionate about theatre as I am.”
Dean hopes that the audience will re-examine their own tumultuous relationships and look for the love and understanding that once existed.
“I want the audience to be drawn into the work that these two characters do in the play to rediscover each other,” says Dean. “So I hope that people who had come to the play and have had troubling relationships with people will take another run at understanding them, maybe forgiving them, maybe rediscovering the love they once had.”
The Year My Mother Came Back
Various times,
Thursday, February 16 to Sunday, February 26
$25, Congregation Emanu-El Black Box Theatre
bemaproductions.com